Patience and Wisdom and Kindness...

They spare us so much!

A young lady was waiting for her flight at a big airport. As her wait would be long, she bought herself a book to pass the time, and a packet of cookies.

Then she sat down in an armchair in the VIP lounge to rest and read in peace.

Beside the armchair where the packet of cookies lay, sat a man reading a magazine.

When she took out the first cookie, the man took one also. She felt irritated but said nothing. She just thought, “What a nerve!”

For each cookie she took, the man took one. It was infuriating, but she didn’t want to cause a scene.

When only one cookie remained, the man divided it into half, giving her one half.

This was too much! She took her book and her things and stormed out of the lounge to the boarding area.

It was only when she sat down in the plane that she opened her purse, and to her surprise, her unopened packet of cookies was there, where she had put it.

Patience and Wisdom...

...are highly useful virtues!


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(Photo received in an e-mail, originally coming from heaven only knows where.)

On Pins and Needles!

(In the UK, knitting needles, I believe, are called knitting pins.)

So, at last, my lace project is on the needles! Doesn't look like much yet, but I'm pleased with the start and thought I'd share pictures of the front and the back.

The the circular needle distorts the shape of the work but it's actually going to be a square afghan, knitted from the center outwards in rounds.

Evening with Met. Kallistos

For anybody who may be interested, Andreas shares his synopsis of the lecture Met. Kallistos delivered here in Richmond Wednesday night.

As I mentioned, it's a good, if lengthy, reply to those who accuse Orthodoxy of being overly influenced by Greek paganism.

"Snow"

The weatherman says our chance of snow is only 30% Friday, much higher on Saturday, but the "main event" will be on Monday. I don't like the sound of that. I'm ready for it all to go away.

One nice thing about it is that the reflection from it really lights everything up. Our house is light and airy anyway; we've worked hard to make it so, even adding three windows and making liberal use of the color white inside. With the light reflecting off the snow, everything looks VERY white.

So today I was inspecting the image in the mirror. With glasses on. (And I am sorry to report that my mirror's strange ailment has not cleared up; it reflects a worse and worse image as time goes by.)

Time to color my hair again. Cover up the ugly, dark gray roots. Wait a second. What gray roots? I don't see many. Most of my hair looks blonde right down to the scalp. In fact, brighter than blonde. Well, that's weird. Oh, of course, it's the reflection from the snow.

Isn't it? Look again. Part the hair frantically with the fingers. Oh.my.goodness. How in the world???

Flashback: Grandmother A to Grandmother B: "So what color is your hair, really?"

Grandmother B to Grandmother A: "How the heck should I know? I've dyed it red about as long as I can remember!"

Never mind. The hair color will cover up the snow-white roots just as well as the gray, or even better.

Met. Kallistos Comes to Town

Despite all the new-fallen snow, there was a big crowd at church last night for Met. Kallistos' Lecture, Athens and Jerusalem.

The event was sponsored by an organization whose purpose is to promote hellenism, so it was a scholarly lecture rather than His Eminence's usual, more spiritual fare.

It was still very good. It constituted an answer to those who, ironically, accuse Orthodoxy of having swallowed whole too much of pre-Christian Greek philosophy. Ironically, because usually our critics are the ones who turn out to have done that, and they don't realize it.

Maria snagged Demetrios the moment we got there, and marched him (with me close behind) up to two men in the front pew wearing RC clerical garb. "Here's the man who can answer all your questions," she said.

What they wanted to know was, who was that man in the icon painted on the back of the big chair up there?

Demetrios said, "That's where a Bishop sits when presiding over services, and the icon shows Christ, dressed as our Great High Priest. He is our true Bishop."

"And any bishop who sits on that throne isn't going to forget it!" I added.

They laughed, and one said, the other agreeing, "I wish our bishops knew that!"

"Well, if you know it," said Demetrios, "your bishops will soon learn it!"

More laughter.

Then they wanted to know what the open book meant, which Christ was holding open but, curiously, not reading.

I said, "That's the Bible. He's teaching us. He's excercising his episcopal teaching office."

I met these two clerics again at the reception after the lecture, and they turn out not to be Roman Catholics at all, but "Anglo-Catholics." And what's an Anglo-Catholic? I asked.

They're a group that broke away from the Episcopalians when the latter began ordaining women.

So I told them I, too, used to be an Episcopalian, and we compared notes for a while. I told them how my Episcopalian pastor had once commented to me: "Your trouble is that you have a love-hate relationship with the Church. You have no problem with God as your Father, but you are deeply ambivalent about the Church as your Mother." And how that was so true and so insigtful. I said I never resolved that issue until I became Orthodox, because Orthodoxy turned out to be everything I had always hoped the church would be but she never seemed to be. And I added that I hoped these two would find their way to Orthodoxy, as well. To my surprise, they both nodded and said, "We hope and pray the same. We want our entire church to become Orthodox."

So I said I'd join them in that prayer, and I'm sure they would be glad if you would join them, too.

Well, Maybe One Theological Thought in My Head...

The past couple of days, as I sit knitting, I've been pondering militant atheism. Now a tentative atheism, or an agnosticism, or doubt, all those I can understand and respect. But militant atheism is just very hard for me to take seriously. The trouble is, people like that expect us to believe so many things that to me are just outlandish, that stretch credulity far more than Christianity does.

The only outlandish thing Christianity asks you to believe is that God became one of us, weak, hungry, tired, sometimes in need of washing - and suffered and bled and died for us. Now that is outlandish.

But it's not as crazy as thinking the universe happened by chance, or that there is no inherent meaning in things, or that intelligent life (us) came about by chance. There's a better probability that my cat designed the Internet. C'mon, dear atheists. Get serious.

My Latest Obsession: Lace Knitting

Or, No, There isn't a Theological Thought in My Head

Warning: this post will be of no interest to non-knitters.

Here, mistakes and all, is my first attempt to knit up a swatch of the "Shetland Bead and Madeira" lace pattern I've been stewing about for a couple of weeks now. (The background is actually fire engine red; I don't know why my computer distorts it so.) Both sides are done in 4-ply worsted weight yarn.

It's not quite lacy enough.

So I tried it again, this time with baby fingering yarn for the front side.

It looks better in person, somehow, than it does in the photo, but in my opinion, this is TOO lacy, too cobwebby.

So now I've bought some sport weight yarn and I expect it will be just right to give the effect I'm after.

Meanwhile, I believe I've FINALLY, at long last, found (for free) the "Print o' the Wave" pattern for which I've been searching high and low. It's this one, which I have NOT yet knitted. This picture is from the Internet and not (yet!) from my hand, unfortunately.

And the pattern is here. The picture that goes with it looks different from this one, but I think that's because the picture here was knitted using much larger needles. I've done a little swatch using fingering yarn and US size 9 needles (5.5 mm) and it's still tighter than in the picture, even stretched, so tomorrow I am going to try with size 10.5 (6.5 mm). Those are huge needles for yarn that looks more like dental floss!

The pattern is simple in a way, using only 4 stitches any beginning knitter knows (Knit, purl, K2Tog, and YO). Plus, every wrong-side row is plain purl, no pattern stitches. And the scalloped bottom edge creates itself.

And then in another way it's difficult: the pattern repeat is 17 stitches. That makes it hard to memorize and thus, easy to lose ones place. This will be a project to be done in solitude, at least in the beginning; maybe it'll become more or less rote later.

Christ's Sacrifice

Do check out Christopher Orr's blog for a post on the Christian meaning of expiation, here. It's a very helpful article by Fr. Patrick Reardon.

In the Midst of Winter, Endless Summer

It's always Summer in our wonderful sunroom. Sunday we sat there almost all day, talking, reading, knitting. Yes, the view was wintry. We watched the icicles melt. We watched snow on the branches turn to little water drops that shimmered in the breeze and turned into prisms in the bright sunshine. We listened to the meltwater gurgling down the raingutters, and to the snow sliding off our roof. We watched the sunshine clear our driveway and street.

But we were enveloped in Summer. Even on the shortest days of the year, that room is drenched in sunlight and warmth, mostly solar warmth, with very little artificial heat added, and none at all from about mid-morning until sunset. Being in it is downright mood-altering! It's therapy, as Demetrios says, like a sauna or steamroom or a good massage. Or lying on some tropical beach. We picnic there, on a little glass-topped table. We nap there, on a very comfy sofa. We can't get over how much we love being in it.

I no longer resent winter, as I always used to. It no longer depresses me. I have a roomful of Summer right here, year-round.

Had we known all this, we would have built this sunroom many years ago!

More Snow

This is the most snow we've gotten in the Richmond area since 1996, a year I remember well because that is when Madison was born.

We still had about 5 inches on the ground yesterday morning when this latest storm began. The stuff is still coming down. We've gotten about 5 new inches so far. I have the feeling we'll miss church tomorrow for the second Sunday in a row, due to weather.

Schools have been closed all this week.

Demetrios is doing some dictation for the book he's working on. I've been knitting.

I went to the yarn shop earlier in the week and bought the stuff to use on my new lace project. I'm working on a swatch, which I'll show you later. I'm going to force myself, though, to finish the current project before starting the new. Current project is a cranberry colored blanket identical to the one I knitted for Ero (photo here), but much larger, king-sized. It still lacks nearly a foot in length, and still needs the edging added.

They're calling this a blizzard up in the D.C. area. Mom is ensconced in her retirement community and not cut off from any of her regular activities or her friends, most of whom live there, too. The place is laid out like a college campus, with "dormitories," and you can get to every building from any other building without going outside. So she can still play bridge, do her Wii bowling and her volunteer work, and get to the medical clinic (if the doctors can get there!) and convenience store and library and dining rooms and everything. Enviable, huh?

The Catholic Archdiocese there, according to our local news, "is urging Catholics to watch Mass on TV tomorrow and not risk coming out in this weather." Watch on TV? Well, I've never been Catholic, so what do I know? Maybe it is the same thing, or close enough. If you don't count receiving Holy Communion.

Sadness

Our friend in Greece, Christos, had a massive stroke and was near death. When his wife Chrysoula heard about it, she immediately suffered a massive heart attack.

Christos has reposed in the Lord. Chrysoula has recovered and is back at home.

These two wonderful people could both use your prayers, and so could their family. (These are the in-laws of Elpida, daughter of our dear Kostas and Mena.) Thank you.

OSAS?

Sermon to Self on “Once Saved, Always Saved?”

People who believe you can never lose your salvation always point to a series of Bible verses about how God WILL save you. But I don’t know what they do with that whole other series of verses (and whole parables) warning that we can indeed fall from grace.

The Parable of the Sower, for example, speaks of those who “received the Word with joy” (emphasis mine) but then withered away. The Parable of the Talents says, at the end, that if a person does not profit from the great gift, then “even what he has will be taken away.” (Matthew 25:29, Luke 19:26)

St. Paul writes, “…though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing.” (I Corinthians 13:2). Nothing. Not a child of God.

In Matthew 10:22 and Revelation 2:10 we learn that if we are faithful unto death, we shall receive the crown of life.

There is the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant, who was forgiven much, yet failed to forgive his fellow servant a trifling amount.

Probably the clearest verse of all on this subject is John 15:2: “Every branch in Me that bears not fruit He takes away.” And further on in the same chapter (v. 6): “If a man abides not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast [them] into the fire, and they are burned.” This passage clearly refutes the idea that if a person falls away, he must not have been a real Christian in the first place. You can! You can be a true Christian and then then turn your back on Christ, even learn to despise Him. And then what? You’ll never find heaven even inside the Pearly Gates.

You’ll be there, alright. That’s not the question. The question is, will you like being there? Or will you hate it, because it is full of Truth but Truth tortures your guilty conscience? Because it is full of love, and love only makes you jealous? Because it is full of Christ, and you despise Christ?

A guilty conscience, lovelessness, jealousy, despising truth, these are the torments of hell, worse than fire. It is a flat contradiction to say you are saved unless you are – well, saved! Saved from all these.

So take heed. There is more for the Christian to do than simply celebrate. Let us take up our crosses and deny ourselves and follow Him.

Angelic Hymns

Here are two of my favorite pieces of Orthodox music, the Cherubimi (in English) and the Lord's Prayer.

Not necessarily my very favorite recording (I could do without the birdsong), but very lovely indeed!

Words to the first:

Let us, who mystically represent the Cherubim
And who sing the Thrice-Holy Hymn
To the Life-Creating Trinity,
Now lay aside all earthly cares,
That we may receive the King of All,
Who comes invisibly upborne
By the angelic hosts.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

Dog-napping

Or, How I Learned to Groom Poodles

Yes, well, I seem to be an old hand at stealing animals. (I prefer to call it rescuing them, thank you very much.) Well, not really. Despite my best intentions, I never managed actually to steal an animal. Okay, there was one time, but I ended up returning that puppy before he was even missed. Almost before. Alright, three days after...

But that’s another story. This story is about Toby, a black Toy Poodle who lived in my neighborhood many years ago. I wanted to steal him, but it didn't work out that way.

He used to run around loose in the neighborhood because his owners worked. And he was filthy. One day, I just couldn’t stand it anymore, and I brought him into my house and washed his hind quarters, which had his own turds caught in the hair. I cleaned him up – that part of him, anyway; he was still very dirty everywhere else – and then I took a pair of scissors and shortened the hair under his tail and along the back of his hind legs. What I had done wasn’t really noticeable, I told myself. And then I put the ragamuffin back outside. And that’s how it all started.

It was like an alcoholic taking that first drink and getting hooked. I couldn't stop. Next day, I combed out the bedraggled little pom-pom at the end of Toby’s tail. The day after that I trimmed it up just a bit, to make it into a nice, smooth sphere. I didn’t know much about grooming poodles, even though I had three of my own. But I did my best and it turned out fine. Toby still looked a mess, of course, because the rest of him was so tangled and dirt-encrusted.

And so it went from there. Every day, I’d steal Toby for an hour or so and work on a little patch of his hair. It was so badly matted, though, that I never got very far. It was way beyond my capabilities. He needed a professional job. I did manage to trim his very long claws. And poodles get this fine, loosely-rooted hair in their ears that needs pulling out from time to time, so I did that much. (Pulling it out doesn't hurt.) I cleaned the wax out of his ears.

Eventually, his family began to notice their dog’s gradually improving appearance. They made some inquiries, and apparently it didn’t take them long to identify the perpetrator. I apologized profusely for butting in to something that was not my business and then began, as gently as I could, probing to see whether they really wanted to keep such a high-maintenance dog.

They didn’t! If I could find a home for Toby, they would be very glad.

I bought him on the spot. Two hundred bucks, which is what they had paid for him. I had bought and sold enough poodles to know that was a virtual steal; he had good enough conformation to be worth about $300 (in those days).

The first thing I did was put an ad in the newspaper, because as I mentioned, With three poodles of my own, I couldn’t keep Toby.

The second thing I did was take him to a dog-grooming salon. I had hardly gotten home when the groomer telephoned me to say there was no way in the world she could comb out that hair; it would all have to come off. Toby would have to be shaved down to the skin.

Poor Toby! He was so ashamed of being naked! He began trying to hide and it took him several days to recover his dignity, along with a modicum of hair.

A couple of days later, I had a telephone call from Martha, one of the most interesting people I’ve ever had the privilege to meet, and she wanted Toby. I began telling her about all the brushing and clipping and cleaning a poodle needs, when she interrupted me. “I’m a dog groomer.”

Was that perfect, or what?

I took Toby to her house for her to have a look. And for us to get a look at her, as well.

Martha had her grooming studio in the back of her house, a large room with a vinyl floor, lots of cabinetry, plenty of counter top space, grooming tables, a laundry tub, driers on tall poles. And a sparrow named Alice. Alice was one of many orphaned birds Martha had raised, and Alice (for reasons I never ascertained) had the freedom of the house. But where Alice most liked to be was - in Martha’s hair! Yes. Martha had thick, tightly curled hair and is the only white woman I ever knew who sported an Afro. Well, that bird would fly onto her shoulder, hop up into her hair, turn herself around several times as if to wrap herself in a blonde blanket, and sit there while Martha worked. Or maybe the sparrow was sleeping in there, for all I know. You couldn't see her, to know what she was doing.

The birds outside the window, as if jealous, were beating their wings and beaks upon the glass. “Oh, they just want me to put out some more food for them,” she said. “Excuse me a moment.”

She loved Toby and Toby loved her. It was all perfect except that Martha didn’t have any money to buy Toby. She had recently found a stray horse, she explained. A stray horse?!?! Who finds stray horses? Martha does. The horse had been sick, injured and starved, and Martha had had him vetted and bandaged and medicated and cleaned up, and the horse was now living in the barn with her other horse. He had turned out to be a very beautiful creature, too, an excellent specimen of Quarter Horse. But she was having to pay for his room and board; hence, she had no money for the dog.

It was such a shame. She really was just the person I wanted for this dog... So we came to an arrangement. Martha agreed, in exchange for Toby, to teach me how to groom poodles. That would pretty quickly save me a lot more than the $200 I had paid for Toby.

So I came to work with Martha (and Alice, the sparrow) for a delightful and educational week. Martha got her dog, Toby got a new and happy home, his former owners got $200 and peace of mind, I became proficient at poodle clipping, and we all lived happily ever after.